A Logline a Day

All right, it's finally gotten to be enough. I was getting burnt out, so I'm indefinitely ceasing the screenplay a month thing. I would've continued until I'd finished my first (Shadows), but, I know that with the same pace it would've ended up rather unfinished anyway, so.

I realized I've written four screenplays so far out here, and I'm in the middle of a fifth, when I came out to LA having only three. Four and a half screenplays is plenty for me to work on for now. I've gotten some quantity done, time to do some quality.

My basic plans for the screenplays are as follows:

SHADOWS: Page one rewrite. I like the basic ideas behind it, which is why I'm going to keep working on it, but it has so many structural issues it's just going to be easier to start over. MESSIAH: Currently has three timelines, and I'm cutting out one of them. That's going to require strengthening and lengthening the other two. A relatively heavy third draft, so there&…

This month, I decided I wanted to do some sci-fi, so I'm going to be writing some variation of my first ten-page treatment, Psycop. I don't imagine the final product is going to match that treatment very well, but a lot of the elements and characters are going to be there. We'll see what happens.

That was definitely one of the worst research experiences of my life. Like, it's one thing to search for "Ways to kill yourself," it's another thing to have to trawl around suicide forums (which is a thing that exists) reading people talking about their attempts and what they're gonna try and why they're doing it and whatever. It's messed up.

But the first draft is done, and God willing, I won't have to do any more research like that for the edits. We'll see what happens.

I also finished the second draft of Messiah, and it went far better than the second draft of Shadows. I was a lot more structured about how I did it this time, and it helped a lot. I made a big checklist... and you know what? I'll just paste it here.